Van Gogh's "Irises," "Roses" to be exhibited in New York's Met museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will bring together for the first time the quartet of Vincent van Gogh's irises and roses.

On display as from Tuesday will be the portrait-framed "Irises" from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and the landscape-framed "Roses" from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., along with the Metropolitan Museum's "Irises" and "Roses."

In the four paintings with "contrasting formats and color schemes," van Gogh sought to impart a "calm, unremitting ardor" to his "last stroke of the brush," as he painted the pieces on the eve of his departure from the mental asylum at Saint-Remy, France, said the museum.

Van Gogh settled in Arles, France, in 1888 and in the following year, a nervous breakdown brought him to the Saint-Remy asylum. In 1890, the depressed artist shot himself in the chest and died two days after the shooting.

The four paintings of irises and roses are conceived as a series or ensemble on a par with the sunflower series painted earlier in Arles, the museum said.

The installation will present the paintings in the order in which they were realized, and in frames adapted from the artist's profile but designed to be unobtrusive, so that the unfolding logic and verve of van Gogh's four-part painting campaign may be fully appreciated.

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the blooming of the flowers that had captivated the artist's attention, the museum said. The display will last about three months.

The museum's initiative in reuniting the group of four paintings has been the stimulus for new technical and documentary investigations, undertaken in close collaboration with researchers, conservators, and scientists at the lending institutions. These findings will also be introduced in the exhibition. Endi